Death's Cradle
by BlackLadyCharon
Summary: The Four Riders are never the same when the Eldest himself can be struck down.  There is much to do, and the Balance must be rewritten, even in flimsy mortal bodies with incorrect magic.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Well, I don't know how this'll turn out, but I want to do it. As usual, flames will only amuse me.

Disclaimer: I own neither Darksiders nor Harry Potter, and I'm broke, so there's no point in suing me.

Music for this chapter: Cat's in the Cradle - Harry Chapin

Death's Cradle

By BlackLadyCharon

Chapter one: The Child Arrived

'_My child arrived just the other day_

_He came to the world in the usual way_

_But there were planes to catch and bills to pay_

_He learned to walk while I was away_

_And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew_

_He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad_

_You know I'm gonna be like you" _' Cat's in the Cradle - Harry Chapin

_He was Oldest of the Eldest, but even he was not immune to himself. He almost laughed at that poisonous irony. He walked slowly forward, his lank hair falling into his face, leaning on his weapon as a crutch to keep himself moving forward. Blood trailed down his pallid, glistening skin, carnelian brightness riveting, the plump drops leaving a trail for what followed. Betrayed, betrayed, betrayed, his heart beat time to that word. His world, his brothers, gone. Was there to be no Balance, just anarchy? He slumped against the siltstone walls, the constant deathrattle of his breath wheezing for a second. He reached up with a mangled hand, ripping the mask that was one of his constants off and turning to place parched lips to a trickle of water flowing down the wall. The first mouthful was sweet, full of life, but the second bitter as spoiled milk. He spat it out and cursed, angels and demons and Council alike._

'_**I will not give them satisfaction**__.' His blood made his fingers slick as he held the last, precious item he'd taken with him as he began again his weary trudge. '__**By our visions, Creator, so do I swear, so mote it BE!'**_

The youth snapped upright, choking back the rage worn and filled howl on his lips with all of his might. He bit his lips until blood flowed almost soothing in its heavy copper taste into his mouth, waiting to see if he'd woken his relatives. No heavy tread broke the silence, no shrilling voice accusing him of trying to ruin their sleep accompanied by pounding upon his door indicated his success in keeping quiet. Harry Potter drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh. He was no stranger to nightmares, but this… this was no familiar spectre that had haunted him. His fists clenched, and in the left one, something cut into his palm, feeling razored and chill and leaden. Harry frowned, opening his hand. In it nestled a seed, almost like a plum's in shape, but dark black fading to deep red to pure glinting silver at the edges. It weighed far more then it looked like it did, heavy with secrets and possibilities. Harry didn't even stop to think, to remember that he was still in pajamas and that the clock read three fifteen in the morning. He grabbed his shoes, and the muggle cash Ron had sent him as a joke for his birthday, and walked out of his room, down the hall, and out the front door. There had to be an all night store somewhere nearby.

()

The clerk had been disinterested in him, even if he was wearing his nightclothes and buying a pot and potting soil. Harry had a feeling that the only way the man would have noticed him was if he'd come in starkers and tried to buy beer. And now here he was, sitting in the park, picking out rocks of a suitable size to put in the bottom of the pot, half filling it with dirt, and placing the seed on top with exquisite care. He frowned down at it, wondering what kind of tree would grow from such a seed. It didn't look like a normal tree seed, but it didn't look like anything from Herbology class either.

"Ah well, guess I'll find out when it grows." Harry dumped more soil on top of it, then picked up the pot and began walking back to the Dursley's. The dream was fading in his mind, but he found himself checking above, behind, and around him for unknown pursuit. Sudden noises caused him to clutch the pot, ears straining and heart pounding (and why did the heavy rapid beat feel so wrong, like it was never meant to be, shouldn't be, oh Creator was he going insane?), until he identified it as a dog or a cat or a raccoon and once a rabbit. Harry got to the Dursley's, and fled to his room with as much silence as he could muster, pushing the pot into a corner that wouldn't be visible to Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon or Creator forbid Dudley. He knew they'd destroy it and the seed, and the sensation he got when he thought of the seed cracked and mashed by a hammer made him want to vomit and scrub his skin with shards of glass until blood washed away the sick feeling.

Harry glanced out the window as he headed back towards his bed and froze. There was someone standing in the middle of Privet Drive, looking up at his window. The face was androgynous, with long hair that was almost white, but with a queer green tinge to it (pale, his mind supplied from somewhere. The color's called pale, they sometimes have horses with that kind of coat coloring, they look like they're four days dead and starting to rot.), the skin had an almost blue undertint to it, and the eyes were completely black, iris and sclera both the shade of pitch. The frame was lanky, the white clothing baggy and belted just right so that he couldn't tell it there were breasts or not. And it had wings, long trailing wings that started pure white and then moved through shades of gray so that the final pinions were black, etched with glowing gold symbols that Harry could almost read. The blue-black lips split into a grin that bared sharklike teeth as it spoke, its voice reverberating in Harry's head.

'_Come, Oh greatest of the Four Beasts. Come and See._'

And as if the voice was a trigger to blank out everything else it was morning, and Harry was standing in the center of his room, naked from the waist up, worn black jeans on and barefoot. There was mud on his chest, and his lungs burned like he'd been running full steam ahead on a cold winter's morning, never mind that it was the end of summer and hotter than Lucifer's supposed dwelling place. Harry shook his head, trying to recall anything, and then noticed the glass of water in his hand. With a shrug, he found and old toy basin to put the flowerpot in and dumped the water into it, before grabbing his ratty towel and a change of clothes as he headed across the hall towards the bathroom. Harry showered, trying to ignore the sore muscles and the blisters on his hands (they looked familiar somehow, almost like something off of a farmer's hands during harvest on those old fashioned farms that they'd gone on a field trip to back before he went to Hogwarts.), then dressed and went downstairs to start weeding the garden. Aunt Petunia would assign the task to him anyway, Harry figured he might as well do it before the sun rose high and baked both the ground and him. While he worked, he listened to the noise around him, startled at what he heard being bandied about.

"George Winklemeier…"

"Dirty bastard, going pious as you please to church on Sunday morning after seducing younger teens Saturday night…"

"How could something this bizarre happen here?"

"Coppers said it looked like someone split him crotch to chest…"

"Said it looked like someone tried to rend him in two but didn't have the right angle…" Harry stared down at the sunny dandelion, his mind whirling. George Winklemeier was a sick man, liked teens thirteen to fifteen, didn't give a fig about their sex. He was smart about it though, and suited up, had the money for good lawyers (The increasingly active and sardonic part of his mind snorted and said there was no such thing as a 'good' lawyer, they were all the spawn of the devil's.) so that he got off with fines for public indecency instead of taking a trip to the gaol for statutory rape. From the sounds of it, someone had done the lecherous slime in, and Harry couldn't find it in himself to be sorry about it. He started to reach for the dandelion to pull it up…

_The man's breath is foul, vodka and turning milk and the sickness of a not in its right mind predatory beast tainting the air. The grinning face is too close to his own as the hand clasps onto his arm, the ill washed man thrusting his hips forward in a promiscuous manner. He looks up and feels a wave of cold pleasure as the face pales, and the hand lets go as its owner overbalances and falls to the ground. He laughs, soft and chill as the man babbles._

"_Wha- What are yeh?" As the weapon forms in his hands, he decides that he's not going to answer. The answer is obvious enough, even for this evolved monkey._

"Boy! Boy! You'd better not be crushing my flowers!" For the first time in his life, Harry was grateful for Aunt Petunia and her nails on chalkboard voice. He finished reaching down, grabbed the dandelion and pulled it up, before standing up to head in and start breakfast. Harry didn't look back, or he would have seen his shadow, the proportions twisted from slim teen to hulking and inhuman sized man, fall across Aunt Petunia's prized rose bush, the plant curling in on itself and dying, not even putting up a fight against what happened to it. As he made breakfast for everyone, he also failed to notice the milk curdling in it's plastic container as he put it back in the fridge, or the fact that three of the eggs as he put the container back cracked and leaked foul green and black slime.

The human mind was good at ignoring things it didn't want to See, and Harry was by no means ready to accept that something stranger than regular magic was occurring around him.

()

Harry sat on the swing in the park, just gazing at the ground. His head had acquired a dull throb throughout the day as he kept hearing more and more details about Winklemeier's death. He was beginning to wish he could just cast some nasty charm or curse that would make a person's mouth disappear if he heard one more cheerful and morbid comment. He kicked the ground, listening to the swing creak, and scowled.

'_Can't learn to do that, don't dare learn to do that. It's Dark Magic, wrong and evil and good little Saviors of the Light don't use it.'_ Harry pushed out of the swing and went and laid down on the bottom of the slide, relishing the heat that seeped into his clothes from the metal. He kept feeling colder and more detached as the day went on. It was almost like his mind was reordering itself, thoughts that he'd never been allowed to think surfacing and meeting with his approval. Harry traced the path of a cloud in the sky, letting his thoughts trail along.

'_The Light side's a bunch of blind, self-righteous idiots and hypocrites. This spell is banned and evil because it does this, that spell isn't because no one would think of evil uses for it. The entrail expelling curse is Dark, but Wingardium Leviosa isn't? Oh, what I could do with some razor sharp glass and that spell. Or knives or even better yet razor blades. Actually, given how hard it is to enchant cold iron, better to stick with the glass. Though it seems that the wizarding world is losing the ability to do so. All of those armor suits are ancient, and transfigured iron isn't really iron. The closest I've seen to anything worked on cold iron is the Hogwarts Express and Arthur's Ford Angelica, and I bet he couldn't replicate what he did to that thing…_' Harry's view of the cloud was obstructed about then by Dudley's big, piggy head. Harry had to suppress the urge to stick his fingers through Dudder's eyesockets as the piglet leered down at him.

"Whatcha doin', Freak? Missing your little butt buddies?" Harry gave Dudley the American one fingered salute and sat up.

"No, Porky, I'm thinking on morals and ethics. You know, the things you don't bother to learn? Well, at least Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon practice what they preach, don't they? Anything different is bad, everyone else should be normal like them." Harry grinned as Dudley sputtered and turned and interesting shade of purple.

"But they're not normal, are they? A witch for a sister, a wizard for a nephew, what would the neighbors think?" Harry leaned in, and prodded Dudley with a finger.

"Ever wonder what position you'd be in if you'd shown magic, Dudders? Or dread the day you have to admit to doting grandma and grandpa that the apple of their aged eyes is going to have to go to the school for freaks?" Harry watched Dudley stagger back at that statement, feeling a chill tiredness envelope him.

"Sh-shut it! That's not gonna happen!" Harry leaned back against the slide again, suddenly feeling ancient beyond all recall.

"It's all too likely to happen, Dudley. Blood will tell in the end, and yours carries magic's strain too. You just… will not accept it." Harry closed his eyes as Dudley staggered off, his mind mulling over things.

'_I am all of my name, from the purest parts that tread the White City to the darkest parts that skitter through the Dark Depths. My name defines me, consumes me, gives me dominion over my purpose.'_ His eyes opened to stare as if blind up into the sky, the vibrant green consumed for just a few seconds by a sullen and sickly white.

'_So why, oh why can I not recall it?'_

'Fin chap one'

…I think I'm having way too much fun with this already.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: *Sighs.* Well, Darksiders II is out, and large pieces of my headcannon have been executed. Always the peril with fanfiction, a new cannon piece comes out and your headcannon suffers major wounds. On the other hand, I love snarky Death almost more than War, so at least I'm happy. Between the game and what I've found of the novel (decent sized partial posting of it, but they cut large chunks out so I'll shell out $11 for it.), my headcannon is currently under major revision, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up. If anything, the awesomeness that is Death makes me more determined to do this! As always, flames amuse me, so don't expect angry ranty rage if you do flame.

Disclaimer: I own neither Darksiders nor Harry Potter, and I'm broke, so there's no point in suing me.

Music for this chapter: My Heaven is Your Hell - Lordi

Death's Cradle

By BlackLadyCharon

Chapter Two: Heaven and Hell

_My Heaven is your hell_

_I'm bound to roam the shadows_

_The way you shine is killing me_

_We two cannot be one_

_My Heaven is your hell_

_And there is no tomorrow_

_If I stay I'll fade away_

_By dawn I will be gone _, My Heaven is Your Hell - Lordi

_It is really more of a whim that has him telling the Council he's on vacation, saddling Despair, and vanishing from their jurisdiction for a short span, only a mere five hundred years. He's not entirely lying, either. After the incident in Ed… that place, after the title of Kinslayer, he needs to just ride. The Nephilim might have been depraved, monsters even worse than their Sires, but they were still his kith and kin._

_Kinslayer sits ill upon him._

_That, and there are things to be dealt with that are none of the Council's business. He dismounts from his horse at the half ruined tower he has sought, follows the tangled and collapsing corridors to the hall he seeks. The figure seated upon the throne in it looks up, blank white eyes with tinting of black wide and curious, lips the blue of a drowning victim curved in a constantly amused smile. He shakes his horned head, one horn slim and ivory white, the second gnarled and black as night, as if the white frosted black hair has impeded his non-existent physical sight._

"_How… pleasant to see you, 'Father'. What need have you of all beings of this Oracle?" The snarking tone is familiar, as is the irony in the young man's choice of terms for him. No blood connects them, for all the Nephilic looks Oracle is not Nephilim. Just something found on a bloodstained and ash strewn world that he didn't put to the scythe. He often wonders why, and he cannot recall more of that visit, of what he had asked and been told._

_What he recalls is his last sight of the tower, now completely ruined, and the hanging corpse of Oracle, and the slaughtered forms of both Angel's and Demon's._

Harry really didn't like that dream awakening him. His sleep had been troubled over the past week, different dreams of different places, slaughters that seemed familiar. Oracle was one more face to haunt his waking moments, along with the others. The man's uncanny resemblance to the thing that Harry had seen that one night irked him. He didn't know how, but he was sure the creature was Oracle's doing, a chess piece moved from beyond the grave in a game Harry was certain he'd once known the rules to and the reasons for. That he didn't now was an irritation and threat.

He turned instead to the flowerpot, checking to see if anything had sprouted yet. Logically, Harry knew that seven days was far too soon for whatever the seed was to have started anything yet, but he still checked it. The Dursleys had paid startlingly little attention to it, almost as if their eyes slid aside and refused to register the pot and its contents. He felt grateful for that, whether it was magic or not. Instead, Aunt Petunia seemed far more concerned with the sudden blight through her plants, the damned things just up and croaking with no provocation, and the fact that the fridge seemed to be on the fritz, with food going bad at rapid paces. At least she hadn't blamed him for it.

As he expected, nothing poked through the dirt in a feeble defiance of entropy, and Harry set the pot aside after watering it, reluctantly going downstairs to make breakfast, before bolting out. For some reason, he just couldn't stand the thought of being trapped in chores that day. He nicked the days paper out of a garbage bin, studying it for signs of Voldemort's return. Nothing caught his eye, and he threw it back in with a snarl of disgust. Why the old S.O.B. wouldn't just up and move so he had something to do pissed him off. Harry headed to the library, picking up books and reading them randomly until they bored him to pass the day, then headed to the park and sat in the swings, thinking again.

'_Flight from Death my ass, no one escapes the Pale Rider, not even his own kin at times. Sure, they come back, they're different that way, but Tom Riddle isn't going to get away, no matter how much he squirms…'_

About then, Dudley's porcine self strode into the playground, with his sniveling little band of sycophants in tow. From the tones of it, they hadn't been out breaking people's shit for a change, they'd been out pounding on someone smaller and weaker. Harry ignored them, idly pushing the swing so that it moved a little, until a grimy hand that looked awfully like a rodent's paw grabbed one of the chains, jerking the swing to a halt. Harry looked at Piers Polkiss banefully, who grinned in a way that sharpened his resemblance to a humanoid rat. Stupid fool.

"Lookie, it's our old punching bag, out for a rememberance of the good old days! Dudley, how about a few swings?" Harry watched Dudley start to sweat, trying to figure out how to get out of this, and then he saw it again. The thing, he was beginning to think of it as a plague angel with the corpse-y look it had going, was standing near the entrance to the park, teeth bared in a death grin. Like it was taunting him or something. The thing was, Harry was sure only he could see it, a fact reinforced by the evidence of one of Dudley's goons staring right at it and not looking like he was about to shit himself and run or calling out about freaks dressed up outside of Halloween. The thing's voice came to him, a note of curiosity in it.

'_Well, greatest of the Four? Will you not show this one his place? He is so clearly asking for it.'_ Harry ignored it as best he could, feeling the cold detachment rise in him as he stood up from the swing, turning to face Piers, who looked a little uncertain all of a sudden. After all, the prey usually didn't want to fight back. Harry felt a razorblade smile cross his face, sliding a hand into his pocket.

"You know the good thing about going to a school with a bunch of homicidal loons and sociopaths, Piers? There's always one willing to teach techniques to a newbie in exchange for being a gofer. Care to see what I've learned first hand?" Piers backed away, fear making his face interesting, and Harry was seized by the desire to stalk Piers into a corner, trail something sharp lightly across skin, just enough for a little blood and a lot of terror, to watch Piers piss himself at the expectation of death… and then to turn aside on a whim, going after someone else instead. Or not, Harry was finding it hard to decide. Decisions, decisions, it had been so long since he'd been free to make decisions…

"Enough, Harry. We gotta get home, or Mum's gonna have both our hides." Dudley grabbed his arm and hauled him off, shouting goodnights over his shoulder, while Harry was gazing up at him in stunned affront. He'd been making a decision, damn it! Dudley was going to regret ruining it for him. Harry jerked his arm out of Dudley's grasp, stopping in the alleyway and baring his teeth. Dudley turned to him, wearing a more stupid than usual expression, and Harry hissed at him.

"What did you think you were doing, Duddie? I wanted to fight!" The whine sounded petulant even to him, but Harry couldn't help it. He was angry that Piers thought of him as only a tool still, years later, and the plague angel hadn't helped. Instead, it seemed to be goading him, as if it wanted him to act on some set of impulses and thoughts deep rooted and almost gone. What did it want to reawaken in him, that it pressed buttons so viciously? Dudley shook his head, frowning.

"You're not acting right, even more like a freak than you do after you come home from that school. You aren't bloodthirsty, and you've been both skittish and cranky lately. Hell, you snapped at some kid not to touch you in the market yesterday! And you're baring your teeth at me like Aunt Marge's Ripper right now. That isn't like you." Harry had to struggle to get his lips to cover his teeth again, and found himself ruthlessly stomping on instincts to just stride forward and grab Dudley, to rip him limb from limb and just laugh and laugh. Dudley was right, Harry wasn't like this. Was he? He was having trouble thinking, like something was thrashing in it's death throes in his skull. Or were they the pangs of something long thought dead clawing it's way back to life? After a bit, the thoughts subsided a little, and Harry looked at Dudley, curious.

"What's it to you, Dinky Diddums? 'Snot like you to care, or did what I said to you last week actually go through your skull?" Dudley snorted, sounding like a wild boar.

"Don't call me that, I'm having enough trouble trying to get Mum to drop it as it is. And I just don't get you, Harry. You're acting like something that's sick right now. Maybe we ought to go home and ring the doctor… hey, why're the lights out?" Harry hadn't noticed that the streetlights seemed to have faded until Dudley mentioned it, but now that he had the thing in his head had ramped back up, screaming in eldritch fury. Then he heard them, one deep rattling breath from one way followed by a second from the other. They'd been neatly cornered during the argument, and Harry wasn't sure he could get his wand out in time. He turned to Dudley, who was starting to shake.

"Get down! Get down and cover your mouth! They're soul stealers, someone set them on us!" Harry fumbled for his wand as Dudley surprisingly did what he was told, sinking down and clamping his hands across his mouth. The wand slid out of Harry's pocket, but one of the Dementors darted across the space, smacking it away from him before he could think to cast. He caught glimpses of the second prying at Dudley's hands, trying to get them away from his mouth, felt his own head being tilted up in a parody of a lover's caress. His mother was screaming in his head, the last thing he'd ever hear…

_The memory struck without warning, spurred by the soul stealer that stripped away what little there was that was bright and good in his short current life. Naahmah lies on the cold stone, still alive but crippled, trying to use her claws to drag herself nearer to him, wailing in betrayed fury. He avoids her save to stomp on an already grasping hand, taking no pleasure from her screams and the crack of bones tens of times stronger than those of the frail humans he has been ordered to protect. This part of the massacre occurring he would not leave to his siblings. Fury would soften, spare one or two who she felt were not that bad. War would turn away from them all, damn his honor. Strife… it would break something in his wild sibling, he is sure of it. Most of them are huddled in a corner, wide eyes staring at him and small, vicious hisses slipping from their lips as they pile together for warmth. A few of them are outside the huddle, almost but not quite old enough to be out on the fields instead of here in the nest. They are the ones that it simply sickens him to slaughter._

_It is the fifteen still in the cradles that break him, that he blacks out what he is doing and only remembers looking at them to make sure they are gone. He turns, walking towards Naahmah and her broken sobs, and puts the Harvester through the back of her bowed skull before he walks out into the battle, slaughtering many at first because they simply stare at him in mute horror that he has slain the nestlings. That he has been the Executioner of their entire future._

_That he is now truly what he was named, Death. _

The Dementor had only a seconds warning as first sickly white, than fierce burning orange blotted out the natural color of the eyes on its prey. The boy's lips drew back in a savage snarl, before hands that should have been far too fragile to do so reached up and snapped its arm like a twig. It let go of the boy, keening in pain, and the human landed on hands and feet like a cat, head whipping back up and hand reaching out, one of the scared scythes, the Lifebanes forming in his hand as he pushed up to stand. He flung the weapon backward, striking its nestmate in the back and forcing it to fall away from its own prey. The second Lifebane scythe was forming, and the Dementor turned to flee. The last this it heard was a cold, snarling voice as the scythe severed its head from its body, sending it whirling into the cold darkness.

"Don't. Ever. Remind. Me. Of. Eden."

Harry walked to the second Dementor, ignoring the way it was trying to crawl away. (So much like Naahmah, so much like Her… no, don't think on it or you'll break yourself and then how much good will you be, Harry who is also Death?) He stomped hard on the grip of Life, drawing up Bane as its sibling tore out of the shrieking Dementor's back and using it to flip it over, both scythes flashing down to rend its flesh again and again until it stopped. His arms were cover in blue-black fluid that must be blood for Dementors, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Harry leaned down, dismissing the Lifebanes as he did son, checking to see if the Dementor had eaten Dudley while he'd been remembering. Looked like it hadn't, though Dudley wasn't looking that great. Harry got an arm under Dudley, trying to haul him up on his shoulder. Getting Dudley home was going to be a bitch, but at least he'd have time to think… and then batty Mrs. Figg rounded the corner, and Harry spared a moment to thank the Creator that he wasn't still holding the scythes. Looked like his thinking time had just been cut short.

Stupid batty old cat ladies.

'Fin chap two'

…Oh Harry, batty old cat ladies are the least of your problems, and you know it.


End file.
